Category: Book Review

Book Review: Mistaken by Karen Barnett

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Today I’m reviewing Mistaken by Karen Barnett, an original historical romance with echoes of Pride and Prejudice.

Excellent Debut Novel

Cover image: Mistaken by Karen Barnett
Laurie’s brother is involved in a local gang running illegal booze from Canada during Prohibition, and the new man in town, Daniel Shepherd is involved as well. Laurie hates the business the effect alcohol has had on her family, and she hates the fact that all the men in her life seem to be controlled by alcohol.

Yet she finds herself attracted to Daniel.

Things get complicated when another new face arrives in town: Samuel Brown. Brown is a handsome federal agent working to eliminate the illegal trade in alcohol, and he’s also interested in Laurie. Although her head says Samuel is the better choice, her feelings are conflicted, not least because of her brother’s involvement in rum-running.

We get a hint of one of the main plot conflicts in Mistaken’s subtitle:

First Impressions Are Never What They Seem.

Literary buffs may recall that the original title of Pride and Prejudice was First Impressions, and there is something of the Lizzie Bennett in Laurie Burke (not merely the initials). Like Lizzie Bennett, Laurie is embarrassed by her family: in her case, by her alcoholic father. Her initial impressions of people are incorrect, and she makes other errors of character judgement in the same way as Lizzie did. I’ll let you figure out the other similarities yourself.

Mistaken is Karen Barnett’s debut novel, and it’s excellent.

I find that a lot of Christian fiction, especially historical fiction, starts to get repetitive in the themes, plots, characters and settings. Mistaken is set in a small coastal town about twenty miles south of the Canadian border. It’s set during the Prohibition era, so alcohol plays a major role in the story. It’s an original time setting, and an original plot, and I liked that.

And the author doesn’t shy away from the problems alcohol causes and the effect it has on family members. Her writing is more challenging than most Christian fiction, as Laurie has to negotiate some difficult moral choices with no black and white answers. The characters are real, facing problems in a world where the right thing to do isn’t the easy thing to do. And while this is Christian fiction and Laurie’s faith ultimately helps her in finding the answer to her conundrum, the Christian aspect is very understated.

Recommended.

Thanks to Abingdon Press and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review. You can find out more about Karen Barnett at her website, and you can read the introduction to Mistaken below:

Book Review: Illusion by Frank Peretti

If you’ve signed up for my monthly Newsletter, you’ll already have receive my entirely biased list of 50 novels from my favourite Christian authors. If you haven’t, sign up on the right!

Today I’m reviewing Illusion by Frank Peretti, who practically invented the modern Christian speculative fiction genre with This Present Darkness.

Illusion

Mandy’s death in a car accident means the end of her forty-year career in magic.

Or does it? Because Mandy is not dead. She’s nineteen again, but nineteen in 2010, not the 1970 she remembers. Mandy struggles to adjust to modern life, trying to practice her father’s advice: when life hands you lemons, make lemonade. Meanwhile, husband Dane is struggling to adjust to life without his wife … until one day he sees a young magician who reminds him of a young version of Mandy.

As is typical of a Peretti novel, nothing is what it seems. Characters that appeared harmless at first then appear to have some ulterior motive. There is Mandy’s new manager, who helps her get a valid social security number. There is also the mysterious Mr Stone and Mr Mortimer, who appear at Mandy’s funeral, then follow Dane to his new home in northern Idaho to spy on him.

And underneath, there is the mystery of how a dead woman has suddenly appeared again, forty years younger. It’s like there is more than one Mandy, but she is real because she eats and sleeps and talks. And other people talk to her, so it’s not like she’s a ghost – just a teenager in 2010 who only knows the sixties songs and slang.

I try not to read other people’s reviews before I read a book for review, because I don’t want to be influenced by someone else’s ideas. But I did happen to glimpse a couple of reviews before starting to read Illusion, and one commented that they found the beginning of the book confusing.

Well, yes, it was. But I think that was the intention.

Just imagine it. One moment you’re nineteen and enjoying the County Fair with your friends. You sit down to eat lunch, and the next thing you know, the Fair has vanished, everything that is familiar is gone, and people are talking into small plastic boxes and telling you it is 2010 when you know it is 1970. What’s not to be confused about?

So, yes, Illusion was confusing.

It was also engaging and intriguing and I wavered between trying to work out who was who and exactly what was happening, and just wanting to read more and read faster so I could find out for myself. And weird things keep happening. Illusionis not a spiritual warfare novel like Peretti’s early Darkness novels, but it is a fast-paced thriller with a touch of science fiction, albeit from a Christian point of view. I was reading at night and found it hard to keep my eyes open, but even harder to stop reading. Recommended.

Thanks to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review.

Review: Five Days in May by Ninie Hammon

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Today I’m reviewing Nine Days in May by Ninie Hammon. I also interviewed Ninie, and you can read our conversation here.

Five Days in May

Five Days in May starts with the end: the “Big Ugly”, a massive tornado that strikes the town of Graham, Oklahoma, in May 1963. It then goes back five days to show in detail the lives of the townspeople—who know nothing. The reader knows what’s coming, but the characters are tied up in their everyday lives. There is no warning of the coming disaster.

There are four main characters.

Princess (Emily Prentice) is due to be executed in five days for murdering her baby sister. Mac, the widowed preacher has lost his faith in God. Jonas, Mac’s father-in-law, is caring for a wife with “old-timers” disease. Joy, Mac’s teenage daughter, has her own set of problems. There are also some fascinating yet disturbing minor characters, including Wanda and Jackson.

The characters are excellent. Princess has a distinct and engaging voice, and who “sees” things in a way that’s a cross between the movies Green Mile and Being John Malkovich. Joy is a typical teenager, so tied up in her own problems that she can’t see the wood for the trees. Mac is the typical father of a teenage daughter, in that he can’t relate to her and can barely hold a conversation with her. (I could relate—their relationship had a lot of similarities to the relationship between my husband and my daughter.)

The plot was complex, a tangled web of relationships. While I did guess one of the major plot points before it was revealed, that only added to the tension. Was I right? What would the characters think and say when they found out? I was right, but the reaction of one character in particular surprised me. Another behaved exactly true to character … but justice was served in the end, albeit not in the tidy way I perhaps expected.

There are ‘rules’ of writing.

These rules say authors should limit the number of viewpoint characters, and shouldn’t use omniscient point of view. Hammon ‘broke’ both rules in Five Days in May, yet in such a way that it didn’t detract from the story. Rather, it added to the tension (especially given how unhinged some of these characters were …)

While Five Days in May isn’t specifically Christian fiction, there are strong Christian themes of love and sacrifice. These themes underpin a story that is, quite simply, brilliant in both concept and execution. Recommended.

Thanks to the author for providing a free ebook for review. You can find out more about Ninie Hammon at her website, or check out our interview. And here’s the book trailer:

And you can read the beginning below:

Book Review: Secrets She Kept by Cathy Gohlke

If you’ve signed up for my monthly Newsletter, you’ll already have receive my entirely biased list of 50 novels from my favourite Christian authors. If you haven’t, sign up on the right!

Today I’m reviewing Secrets She Kept by Cathy Gohlke.

Secrets She Kept

Goosebump Good

I was a little apprehensive about reading Secrets She Kept. I was one of the three judges who awarded Cathy Gohlke the 2015 Inspy Award for General Fiction, for her novel Saving Amelie. After reading a book as good as Saving Amelie, I’m always a little worried that the author’s next book won’t meet my high expectations.

Well, Secrets She Kept blew Saving Amelie out of the water. Yes, it was that good. Goosebump good.

It’s a split timeline story—the modern story is set in 1972. Hannah Sterling’s mother has just died, and Hannah finds her mother was never entirely honest with her. For starters, Lieselotte wasn’t Austrian . . .

No. Lieselotte was German, living in Germany during the rise of Hitler and during World War II.

The past story is Lieselotte’s, during those life-changing war years. It’s not a happy story, but as we journey with both Hannah and Lieselotte, we discover what made Lieselotte the distant mother she was. It was the secrets she kept.

The writing, the research, the characters, the plot—all were outstanding. It’s one of the few split timeline stories I’ve read where the past and the present stories were equally compelling. Recommended.

Thanks to Tyndale House Publishers and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review. You can find out more about Cathy Gohlke at her website.

You can read the introduction to Secrets She Kept here:

Book Review: Dangerous Passage by Lisa Harris

If you’ve signed up for my monthly Newsletter, you’ll already have receive my entirely biased list of 50 novels from my favourite Christian authors. If you haven’t, sign up on the right!

Today I’m reviewing Dangerous Passage by Lisa Harris.

Dangerous Passage

Excellent Romantic suspense.

Atlanta Detective Avery North has just been called in from her day off to investigate a murder. The victim was a young Asian female with a magnolia tattoo. It’s similar to a recent unsolved crime, and Avery wants to solve this murder before another girl suffers the same fate.

She is assisted by her partner, Mitch, and by Jackson Bryant, the associate medical examiner for the force. Avery has recently started dating Jackson. He’s the first man she’s had more than one date with since her husband died three years ago.

Avery also has family issues. Her father has recently retired from the police force, her brother was murdered four months earlier, and his killer is still at large. She struggles to balance the competing demands of God, family, a full-time job and now dating, and this felt very real.

Dangerous Passage is the first book in the new Southern Crimes series, and I’ll certainly be keen to read more in the series.

It’s got everything I look for in Christian romantic suspense: intelligent and likeable yet imperfect characters, a strong plot with plenty of suspense and a developing romantic subplot, good writing, and an underlying Christian theme.

It deals with big issues—modern slavery—but manages to do it without getting too graphic. Recommended.

Thanks to Revell and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review. You can find out more about Lisa Harris at her website.

You can read the opening chapter here:

Book Review: One Last Thing by Rebecca St James and Nancy Rue

If you’ve signed up for my monthly Newsletter, you’ll already have receive my entirely biased list of 50 novels from my favourite Christian authors. If you haven’t, sign up on the right!

Today I’m reviewing One Last Thing by Rebecca St James and Nancy Rue.

One Last Thing

An Exceptional Tale of Contemporary Issues

Tara Faulkner is marrying Seth Grissom: her brother’s best friend, the son of their pastor, and the guy she’s loved for ten years. But they have a strange argument three weeks before the wedding, and when she returns to discuss it with Seth, she finds him doing something awful.

He promises he’ll change and never do it again, and she wants to believe him. After all, the alternative is cancelling the wedding. But when she finds he lied, she does just that—but he makes her promise not to tell anyone why. This leaves her dealing with all the fallout, not least two families blaming her for the cancellation.

One Last Thing is written entirely in first person point of view from Tara’s viewpoint. This normally only works for complex characters, and Tara wasn’t complex, at least not in the beginning. She was the perfect pampered Southern princess, and while she hasn’t lived an entirely sheltered life, her family is financially stable and she’s always been given the best of everything. She attends church with her family, but there was little indication she had any personal faith: something that’s normally a must in Christian fiction, especially Christian romance.

At first I was a little frustrated that Seth, a Christian man who worked for a mission organisation, was planning to marry a woman who had little or no personal faith of her own. But as the novel progressed, Tara began to search for God … and it explained why Seth was prepared to be “unequally yoked”.

The explanation was misogynistic or hypocritical or possibly both, but it worked. And it worked without making me feel as though my emotions were being manipulated.

That’s strong writing.

The more Tara digs into Seth’s issues, the more she finds out, and the more secrets she has to keep from her friends, her family, and from Seth’s family. The only person who has any sympathy for her is Seth’s younger sister—who’s seen as a troublemaker. She is helped in her troubled journey by a disparate group of ladies she meets while working in a local coffee shop—her first-ever job.

Tara slowly discovers Seth’s issues, and strangely, this allows us to move from repugnance to sympathy for his problems while still acknowledging Tara did the right thing. Seth acknowledges that he has to take responsibility for his own actions, especially when they have hurt others. This is as a positive thing.

Publisher Thomas Nelson has caught some criticism recently for publishing books with inappropriate content for a Christian novel. I suspect they’ll catch a little more over One Last Thing, from people who would like to believe this kind of thing never happens to “proper” Christians.

I wish it didn’t, but it does, and One Last Thing does an excellent job in sensitively fictionalising a growing problem in society.

It’s not easy reading, and it’s not nice. But it is real. Unfortunately.

Thanks to Thomas Nelson and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review. You can find out more about Rebecca St James and Nancy Rue at their websites.

You can read the opening here:

Book Review: God’s Daughter by Heather Day Gilbert

If you’ve signed up for my monthly Newsletter, you’ll already have receive my entirely biased list of 50 novels from my favourite Christian authors. If you haven’t, sign up on the right!

Today I’m reviewing God’s Daughter by debut author Heather Day Gilbert. This review was previously published on my blog, Iola’s Christian Reads.

4.5 Stars for a Unique Historical Novel

It is 1000 AD, and Gudrid is one of the few women on a Viking expedition to upper North America, to rediscover Vineland and bring great wealth back to Leif Eiriksson, their chieftain. She is the wife of Thorfinn Karlsefni, the expedition leader, mother to Snorri, the unofficial leader of the small band of women on the expedition—and the unwilling object of the affections of several of the men.

Gudrid stopped worshipping Thor when she was a child and the capricious god demanded her mother as a sacrifice to guarantee a good harvest. As an adult in Iceland, she learned of the one true God from the monks, and she now follows Him.

God’s Daughter is a character-driven family saga, told entirely in first person from Gudrid’s point of view, and in the present tense—an interesting choice for a story set 1,000 years in the past, but one that’s strangely effective. Her voice is understated, deliberately downplaying the everyday struggles for survival in Viking society, a culture that still worships Thor and where life includes many pagan rituals.

It is obvious that a huge amount of research has gone into God’s Daughter, and while that research comes out in the depth of the narrative around the people, culture and lifestyle, it’s never overbearing and it never gets in the way of the story (although the names were a little difficult at times, because they were so unfamiliar).

The distance of time makes it impossible for us to really know what life was like in the Viking camp of Straumsfjord or the village of Brattahlid in Greenland, but the majesty and the savagery both come alive in the excellent writing. I came away feeling I had a real understanding of Viking life (certainly more than enough to be thankful I live now!).

God’s Daughter is recommended for readers who enjoy well-researched historical fiction set in less well-known times and places, from author such as Iris Anthony (aka Siri Mitchell) or Sharon Penman.

Thanks to the author for providing a free ebook for review. You can find out more about Heather Day Gilbert at her website, and can read the opening of God’s Daughter below:

Book Review: Gone to Ground by Brandilyn Collins

If you’ve signed up for my monthly Newsletter, you’ll already have receive my entirely biased list of 50 novels from my favourite Christian authors. If you haven’t, sign up on the right!

Today I’m reviewing Invisible by award-winning suspense author Brandilyn Collins.

Amazon Description

Amaryllis, Mississippi is a scrappy little town of strong backbone and southern hospitality. A brick-paved Main Street, a park, and a legendary ghost in the local cemetery are all part of its heritage. Everybody knows everybody in Amaryllis, and gossip wafts on the breeze. Its people are friendly, its families tight. On the surface Amaryllis seems much like the bright and lovely flower for which it’s named.

But the Amaryllis flower is poisonous.

In the past three years five unsolved murders have occurred within the town. All the victims were women, and all were killed in similar fashion in their own homes. And just two nights ago—a sixth murder.

Clearly a killer lives among the good citizens of Amaryllis. And now three terrified women are sure they know who he is—someone they love. None is aware of the others’ suspicions. And each must make the heartrending choice to bring the killer down.

But each woman suspects a different man.

My Review

The Closet Killings have claimed five victims in three years in the town of Amaryllis (pop. 1700). All middle-aged women who lived alone. All killed in their beds, then stuffed in the bedroom closet. Now there is a sixth victim… young widow Erika Hollinger.

Gone to Ground is told from three different points of view, three women who are sure they know who the murderer is, and who have reason to want to hide that knowledge. Cleaner Cherrie Mae Devine knows the murderer is the mayor. Pregnant Tully Phillips knows it is her husband. And hairdresser Deena Ruckland knows it is her simple-minded younger brother. Who is right? Or are these simply red herrings, designed to distract us from the real murderer? The story is interspersed with articles from local Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Trent Williams, and these give background information about the town and the personalities involved in the investigation.

This is an excellent who-dun-it, with plenty of twists and turns to keep the investigators (and the reader) guessing. The three narrators were well-developed characters, with each woman having her own distinct voice, which makes it easy to understand the changing points of view. I liked each of them (although Cherrie Mae’s use of the word ‘police’ got old quickly – if the emphasis had to be included, I think I would have found ‘po-lice’ less intrusive).

While Cherrie Mae is a Christian and she prays with the other narrators, it is not clear whether or not they are Christians, nor is it relevant. Although Gone to Ground is not an overtly Christian novel, this is less of an issue to me in a mystery or thriller than it would being a romance, where it is vital that the hero and heroine share a relationship with God. Overall, Gone to Ground is well worth reading if you like mysteries. Recommended.

Thanks to B&H Publishing and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review. You can find out more about Brandilyn Collins and her trademark Seatbelt Suspense at her website, and read the introduction to Gone to Ground below:

Book Review: Invisible by Ginny Yttrup

If you’ve signed up for my monthly Newsletter, you’ll already have receive my entirely biased list of 50 novels from my favourite Christian authors. If you haven’t, sign up on the right!

Today I’m reviewing Invisible by award-winning author Ginny Yttrup. And if you think Invisible sounds good, it is—but Words is even better.

Invisible

Ellyn De Mossmid is in her forties, and is the owner and chef of her own restaurant. Sabina Jackson is a counsellor on leave with stress issues and mild depression. Dr Miles Becker is a healer recovering from the truth that he couldn’t heal his own wife, and Twila Boaz is a recovering anorexic who works in her mother’s health food store while waiting to see where God leads her.

Miles describes Ellyn as witty, intelligent and beautiful. Her voice certainly comes across as witty and intelligent, whereas Miles is more distant, his formality no doubt a product of his grief–and perhaps his guilt. Sabrina tries to be upbeat and professional, but there is something there that might be a lie, while Twila has a wisdom beyond her years. They form an unlikely group of friends, each learning from the others… and there might even be a little romance in there somewhere…

Ginny Yttrup’s first novel, Words, was a finalist for two Christy awards and winner of one, and after just three chapters of Invisible I could see why. I am in awe of her writing. What is even more amazing is that the writing is unobtrusive. I wasn’t reading it and thinking ‘oh, this is great writing’. I was totally engaged in her characters and the story she was telling. It was only as I paused to reflect on the story that I saw how good the writing is, how she has managed to write four quite different characters all in the first person (and in present tense, no less), each with their own unique voice.

Invisible is about finding beauty in God’s creation, including ourselves, and understanding that God’s standard for beauty is not the commercialised and sexualised standard we see in contemporary media. It’s a beautifully written reminder that we are created in the image of our mighty God. Recommended.

Thanks to and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review. You can find out more about Ginny Yttrup on her website, and you can read the beginning of Invisible here:

Book Review: Swimming Through Clouds by Rajdeep Paulus

Book Review: Swimming Through Clouds by Rajdeep Paulus

Book Cover - Swimming Through Clouds by Rajdeep PaulusIf you’ve signed up for my monthly Newsletter, you’ll already have receive my entirely biased list of 50 novels from my favourite Christian authors. If you haven’t . . . sign up on the right!

Today I’m reviewing Swimming Through Clouds, the debut novel from author Rajdeep Paulus. It’s the first in a trilogy, and you’ll want to read them all.

Edgy YA Contemporary Fiction

Talia Grace Vanderbilt is the strange girl at school, the one all the lids call ‘emo’. She’s not. She’s just hiding a home life where her every move is controlled by her father, immigration lawyer Gerard Vanderbilt, and where there consequences for not meeting expectations. She is responsible for caring for her younger brother, Jesse, as their mother is dead.

The whole book is written in first person, from Talia’s point of view.

This means we don’t always get to see or understand the motivations of some of the other characters, like Jesse, Lagan and Gerard. What we do see is filtered through Talia’s understanding, and while she is an intelligent high school senior, her insular upbringing means she is naïve in some respects.
Logan is an equally interesting character. He goes out of his way to befriend Talia, allowing the relationship to develop slowly and almost entirely on her terms. Logan sticks by her, and it’s only late in the book when we begin to get an idea of why.
Gerard, Talia’s father, is an equally interesting character, although in totally the opposite respect. He is, without a doubt, one of the most chilling antagonists I’ve come across is fiction. His entire life is a secret from his family, so we find out very little about him. But what we are shown gives the plot a string of tension that kept me turning the page, even though I was afraid to find out what might be coming. It’s outstanding writing, both compelling and repulsive.

I was particularly impressed by the way backstory was handled.

A lot of writers don’t understand the need to layer it through the story. Swimming Through Clouds dropped hints, so that when when we finally found out about a particular incident from Talia’s past, we wanted to know the details. The author also managed to write some of these scenes so the reader ends up understanding the incident better then Talia does, which is impressive.
This is the first book in a series, and while it had a sense of closure in itself, there were several unanswered questions as well, leaving plenty to cover in the sequel. Swimming Through Clouds isn’t a Christian novel per se, in that God, Jesus and Christianity aren’t mentioned. However, a Christian reader will find Jesus in the story.

Recommended for fans of gritty YA fiction and authors such as Theresa Santy, Trudy Adams and Michelle Dennis Evans. Thanks to the author for providing a free ebook for review. You can find out more about Rajdeep Paulus at her website, and you can read the opening here: